changelingthedreamingfandomcom-20200215-history
The Changeling
By Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) :Toll no bell for me, dear Father, dear Mother, :Waste no sighs; :There are my sister, there is my little brother :Who plays in the place called Paradise, :Your children all, your children for ever; :But I, so wild, :Your disgrace, with the queer brown face, was never, :Never, I know, but half your child! :In the garden at play, all day, last summer, :Far and away I heard :The sweet "tweet-tweet" of a strange new-comer, :The dearest, clearest call of a bird. :It lived down there in the deep green hollow, :My own old home, and the fairies say :The word of a bird is a thing to follow, :So I was away a night and a day. :One evening, too, by the nursery fire, :We snuggled close and sat round so still, :When suddenly as the wind blew higher, :Something scratched on the window-sill, :A pinched brown face peered in-I shivered; :No one listened or seemed to see; :The arms of it waved and the wings of it quivered, :Whoo-I knew it had come for me; :Some are as bad as bad can be! :All night long they danced in the rain, :Round and round in dripping chain, :Threw their caps at the window-pane, :Tried to make me scream and shout :And fling the bedclothes all about; :I meant to stay in bed that night, :And if only you had left a light :They would never have got me out! :Sometimes I wouldn't speak, you see, :Or answer when you spoke to me, :Because in the long, still dusks or Spring :You can hear the whole world whispering: :The shy green grasses making love, :The feathers grow on the dear, grey dove, :The tiny heart of the redstart beat, :The patter of the squirrel's feet, :The pebbles pushing in the silver streams, :The rushes talking in their dreams, :The swish-swish of the bat's black wings :The wild-wood bluebell's sweet tings-tings, :Humming and hammering at your ear, :Everything there is to hear :In the heart of hidden things, :But not in the midst of the nursery riot. :That's why I wanted to be quiet, :Couldn't do my sums, or sing, :Or settle down to anything. :And when, for that, I was sent upstairs :I did kneel down to say my prayers; :But the King who sits on your high church steeple :Has nothing to do with us fairy people! :'Times I pleased you, dear Father, dear Mother, :Learned all my lessons and liked to play, :And dearly I loved the little pale brother :Whom some other birds must have called away. :Why did They bring me here to make me :Not quite bad and not quite good, :Why, unless They're wicked, do They want, in spite, to take me :Back to their wet, wild wood? :Now, every night I shall see the windows shining, :The gold lamp's glow, and the fire's red gleam, :While the best of us are twining twigs :And the rest of us are whining :In the hollow by the stream :Black and chill are Their nights on the wold; :And They live so long and They feel no pain: :I shall grow up, but never grow old, :I shall always, always be very cold, :I shall never come back again!